Police Station, Business Evacuated
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PACOIMA — The Los Angeles Police Department’s Foothill Division station and a nearby business were evacuated for 1 1/2 hours Wednesday after a man brought in what he mistakenly believed was TNT, authorities said.
About 30 officers and employees were evacuated at 3 p.m. when the man, who said he was a veteran, brought to the station in the 12700 block of Osborne Street an envelope with a substance that he found in a supposedly inert mortar shell, Police Sgt. Patricia Gerst said.
The man said that he found the substance in a mortar shell that was being sold at the nearby Surplus City store and that it was highly explosive, Gerst said.
The surplus store, on Sheldon Street, was also evacuated.
Explosives experts who examined the substance described it as a packing wax used in the assembly of mortar shells, which they said is not dangerous.
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